You are listening to the Passion City Church, DC podcast.

To learn more about Passion City Church, including our gathering times in Atlanta and Washington,

D.C. visit us online at passion city church.com.

Today's talk comes from Pastor Ben Stewart.

Well, after the Civil War, Washington, D.C. was a ravaged city. You know, many of the major

battles of the Civil War happened in less than a hundred miles from D.C. and so towards the end of the Civil War DC had become the

refuge for thousands who were fleeing slavery. It had also become the infirmary

for the sick, the hospital for wounded soldiers.

But it was at the time a very incomplete city.

There weren't consistent lighting, there weren't many roads roads and so by the time all these people

had come in to the city it had been devastated. The roads were simply mudholes

and the canal of the DC that was meant to be this great shining

picture of the commerce of a new nation was flooded with raw sewage and dead animals.

So bad that there were some who said we should just abandon DC and move the

capital to St. Louis. But in the midst of that a plumber who turned politician

by the name of Alexander Shepard rose up.

And in a relatively short period of time, the Shepard paved a hundred miles of streets in DC, 200 miles of sidewalks paved,

laid 30 miles of water mains, 70 miles of sewers,

lit 3,000 gas lamps because the city wasn't lit at night before that, filled in the canal and made

at Constitution Avenue and planted 60,000 trees.

Now Alexander Shepard was a controversial guy. I'm not here to defend or

represent him in any way, but what I'm trying to say is in a city that was

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